This research project will examine the changing structure of socioeconomic inequality among the ethnic communities of Peninsular Malaysia from 1947 to 1970. The primary data source will be population censuses of 1947, 1957 and 1970. The 1970 Census data are available on a .02 sample tape containing over 120,000 individual adult records. The first stage of the project will examine the locus and patterns of ethnic change in a variety of socioeconomic dimensions, including educational attainment, occupational structure, urbanization, and the labor force participation of women. The strategy of research will be that of tracing "structural assimilation" or "institutional dispersion" that is expected according to the hypothesis that the secular trend is one of convergence across ethnic communities. The second stage of the project will formulate and test multivariate regression models of the effects of social change on ethnic inequality. Social change will be measured as growth and changing socioeconomic structure of geographical units such as states, districts, and cities. Then these social change measures will be used as "contextual variables" to measure the effects of differential exposure to social change as a potential explanation of ethnic inequality in education and occupational levels. The empirical findings will be of relevance to the construction of theories of ethnic stratification as well as to policy makers. The research strategies and models developed should contribute to a more cumulative research tradition in comparative studies of ethnic stratification.